


You or Your Memory

by hotot



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, I guess???, Memory Alteration, Murder, POV Second Person, Trippy, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26936224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotot/pseuds/hotot
Summary: They say, "You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes." Whoeverthey are...they're right. They didn't mention anything about it making you hate Kellogg even more.
Relationships: Nate/Female Sole Survivor, Nate/Sole Survivor (Fallout)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	You or Your Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Trick to This](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8930290) by [hotot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotot/pseuds/hotot). 
  * Inspired by [Liminal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/710835) by [Iambic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/pseuds/Iambic). 



> Couple authors notes:  
> \- I wrote this a long time ago for my longfic, inspired by a short story beautifully written in 2nd person present, both linked above.  
> -Beth Ezra really fucked up by trying to humanize Kellogg with Tragic Backstory, so I took matters into my own hands and wanted to share. The Sole Survivor here is my own, but feel free to stick your own OCs into the Experience instead. Too tired to try and make it more generic, sorry.  
> \- Chapter title is from a Mountain Goats song of the same name.

_You walk along bioluminescent pathways, mnemonic wiring that leads you to little bubbles of what may or may not be the truth._

_Memory is funny, you think, as you watch a ten year old Conrad receive the gun that will one day end your husband’s life. Oddly, the place in you that should be full of grief is empty because Nate hasn’t yet been murdered. Instead, you are full of fear of the monster called Conrad’s father, lurking beyond the door. But there is a way out. The New California Republic recruitment ad you hear on the radio. You feel a creeping, toxic excitement when you look at the gun Kellogg’s mother hands him, and you realize for the first time in Conrad's life, he holds something he can control._

_The ley lines lead you to the next bubble of memory, and you know their names immediately. There’s Sarah. There’s Nate. There’s Mary. There’s Shaun. Love swells up in your chest, and it is not yours but Kellogg’s. And it resonates in the four—in the eight beating chambers of your hearts. Or it would, if you had a heart, if he had a heart, but your body is missing in action and all you can do is follow someone else's life. You know, because Kellogg knows that that he will never be alone again, but you also know this is a lie, because unlike Kellogg, you have seen the future._

_You have a hard time remembering which you is you._

_The blue light of memory flickers. You lose sight of Sarah and Mary, and reality folds and tears, neurological ley lines ripping and fraying like old ropes, like a glitch in the TV static. One scene cuts into another like you’re flipping through frenetic channels of violence; violence because Kellogg has no choice (there is always a choice). And because he gets paid (there is always leverage). and because he enjoys it (there is always a reason).  
_

_Kellogg stops thinking about Sarah and Mary and you lose them somewhere in the pulsing, tearing iridescence of the ley lines. He doesn't remember them, or doesn't want to, or can’t. You try to do it for him, not for his sake but for yours. Sarah, Mary. Nate, Shaun._

_Losing them is when he dies for the first time._

_And then the memories tune you into Kellogg’s long walk down a pipe-lined corridor; a feature film that ends with revenge, and you are stuck by familiarity of it, his and yours. You walk down that hallway in Fort Hagan and Kellogg is the one who dies when you kick open the door._

_A good death, a better death. This one you see coming._

If dying is an art [1]… _You_ _do it well. The aching words of an old-world poet. A momentary tether that is_ your _thought and not Kellogg's. But the line falls flat. B_ _ecause there is no art to dying, no matter how much practice you get._

_He takes down five first gen synths in under thirty seconds and you wonder how you survived long enough to crawl through his brain. He looks the same, untouched by time, and you start to suspect that he let you kill him. He joins the Institute, offers his leash to their will, hoping to find some stability in an entity that is even less attuned to common decency than he._

_Memory shudders again, like a glitch, the flash of a strobe, ley lines unraveling and you feel pitched, driven towards some forgone conclusion._

_You are behind Kellogg in Vault 111, the chamber lined with frosted sarcophagi. If you had knees you would fall to them, if you had senses, your hands would burn with cold as they pound on the inside of the cryopod that renders your helpless. And if you had feelings that belonged to you alone, you might scream. Instead you watch, and wait. And you. And Kellogg—as Kellogg does his job._

_Nate de-thaws and when the pod opens he looks different, not as handsome or as kind. He looks unfamiliar and average, like a stranger, holding a baby, a tiny, mewling thing. You almost don’t know Nate but somehow you know Nate’s and Shaun’s lungs are filled with the same thick mucous yours filled with just two weeks ago, just..._

_Nate chokes out a pleading question; he thinks they are free, that perhaps the danger of war and radiation has passed, enough time has passed. Oh, Kelloggs's_ _memory but not his feelings match your own, perfectly—they try to take Shaun. Nate’s damp brown hair flops over his gray-tinged hazel eyes, and you feel nothing. Kellogg raises his gun and the shot rings out sharp and hollow in the echoing vault chamber. Nate slumps, dead, delivering Shaun into the arms of an Institute scientist in a hazmat suit._

_Finally you feel something. Annoyance. Not a clean job._

_What about Sarah? Mary? What about..._

_“God damn it,” Kellogg says, and then he approaches you. You follow, peering over Kellogg’s shoulder to watch yourself pound on the glass of the cryopod, annoyance mounting._

_You look unfamiliar as well. Another stranger, small and pale, shuddering as you scream and rage against the glass._

_He raises his fist to the red button that will let you out, and hesitates. How different the world would have been if he had let you out._

_His voice echos, not coming from Kellogg’s mouth but from all around the empty chamber of the vault: “At least we have the backup.”_

_The memory snaps a crackling bioluminescent blue. Feels like hands smoothing the wrinkles from a crumpled piece of paper so violently it tears, bleeding light, and then another pathway lights up and you wonder who’s story this is, really._

_Another stage, set and ready for you. A ten year old child sits on the floor. You know his name, even if he is too old. Affection wells up in you but it doesn't_ belong _to you, and if you had a stomach you’d feel sick. Kellogg cares for Shaun, he loves… Mary, he misses Mary._

_Shaun looks well cared for, clean. He’s thin and small but healthy. He has Nate's. Why is he ten? How can he be ten? Somehow it makes sense that he is ten._

_So much lost time._

_A man barges through the front door wearing sunglasses and a gray leather duster buttoned to the collar. The room chills and you get angry at the man—the synth. His name… His title? His label... is Courser X6-88. He hands Kellogg a file, says he has a new job, one that isn’t Shaun. A scientist, Brian Virgil, has defected from the Institute._

_Shaun seems oblivious, unconcerned about the two killers nose to nose and glowering at each other, and then the Courser beckons to him._

_Shaun asks if he’s going to see his family now. But Nate is dead, and you aren’t there. Shaun has a new family and the thought would send shudders through you if it were your own._

_Shaun bounces up from his spot on the floor, leaving the comic you found in Kellogg’s apartment days ago. Days later? Time means nothing. A little breadcrumb.  
_

_Blue light and a sound somewhere between a gunshot and the snap of a tree branch shatters the quiet tension in Kellogg’s apartment. The ringing sound is the vacuum which follows the sudden absence mass, filled with a greedy, vicious snap of air._

_And Kellogg stands there, empty, and you hate him for being sad that Shaun has been taken from him, and because that sadness taints the grief that belongs to you. And you hate him because he does not hate himself. And you hate him because he is dead and you can't kill him again, and you hate—And with another shattering crack, the world shifts blue and you fall into a red chair, facing a screen of TV static, and you are your own memories once more._

* * *

[1] Sylvia Plath, _Lady Lazarus._


End file.
